This morning I was sitting in my office, working away like usual, when out of nowhere I heard a woman scream. Naturally I didn't investigate. As I continued working away on my computer, I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked to my right and saw a little mouse sitting in the doorway of my office. As soon as I acknowledged it, it scurried towards me as if I were calling it. I saw this as a perfect opportunity to try out my rubber band shooting skills on a moving target. The mouse ran off before I could get a decent shot off. I sat back down and continued working. I've come to realize that after living in Egypt, nothing phases me. Minutes later I heard another woman scream, this time from the opposite side of the floor as the first woman.
Following the second scream I heard the first woman call out, "How did he get over there?!"
I smiled to myself and continued working. A short while later I heard a smash that sounded a bit like wood against the floor. Then I heard jubilant laughing from the women in accounting. I assume that means Stewart Little is no more. Poor little guy. He was so friendly!
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Monday, August 20, 2007
Saturday, August 11, 2007
School's Out For-EVER!
At 7 o clock morning I was awoken by the sound of sirens. After living in downtown Calgary for a few years, this seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, so I fell asleep again. After all, it was a Saturday and I deserved to sleep at least until 9 am. When I got out of bed a couple hours later, I realized that I'm a small town guy now and sirens should be a big deal to me. I figured this would be one of those things I'd hear around the water cooler for the next week or two.
I smelled smoke, similar to the smell of a camp fire. But there's a fire ban on right now, which should've been more reason for me to get excited. Yet I still didn't bother to look outside. After checking my email and reading up on the world news, I noticed the smell of smoke was even more prevalent. I finally sauntered over to the balcony and looked outside. It was quite smokey out there. Not only that, but it was snowing large pieces of ash. Again, you would think that this would pique my curiosity and send me outside in search for the excitement. Instead, I decided to have a shower... just in case the town was evacuated due to an uncontrolled forest fire (I wouldn't want to be driving around, looking for lodgings with bedhead).
After my shower I looked outside once again and saw more people than usual driving around town. I also heard someone on a loudspeaker outside. I put on an episode of the BBC's "Planet Earth" and closed the window to block out the noise and smoke. I had to get through this DVD if I wanted to fit in my maximum number of movies for the month!
Later that day Kristine with a 'K' phoned me up and asked, "So, did you hear the school burned down today?" I hadn't heard. The morning made a lot more sense now, though. Turns out I had that shower for nothing. We walked over to the smoldering rubble and I snapped a few shots. The fire chief came over and talked to us. Apparently his vacation isn't going very well. This is possibly the biggest fire Elkford has ever seen. Surely this event will be talked about for years to come!
I smelled smoke, similar to the smell of a camp fire. But there's a fire ban on right now, which should've been more reason for me to get excited. Yet I still didn't bother to look outside. After checking my email and reading up on the world news, I noticed the smell of smoke was even more prevalent. I finally sauntered over to the balcony and looked outside. It was quite smokey out there. Not only that, but it was snowing large pieces of ash. Again, you would think that this would pique my curiosity and send me outside in search for the excitement. Instead, I decided to have a shower... just in case the town was evacuated due to an uncontrolled forest fire (I wouldn't want to be driving around, looking for lodgings with bedhead).
After my shower I looked outside once again and saw more people than usual driving around town. I also heard someone on a loudspeaker outside. I put on an episode of the BBC's "Planet Earth" and closed the window to block out the noise and smoke. I had to get through this DVD if I wanted to fit in my maximum number of movies for the month!
Later that day Kristine with a 'K' phoned me up and asked, "So, did you hear the school burned down today?" I hadn't heard. The morning made a lot more sense now, though. Turns out I had that shower for nothing. We walked over to the smoldering rubble and I snapped a few shots. The fire chief came over and talked to us. Apparently his vacation isn't going very well. This is possibly the biggest fire Elkford has ever seen. Surely this event will be talked about for years to come!
Don't worry. This school was not in use any more so next month's classes will not be affected by this 'disaster'.
Wednesday, August 08, 2007
Movies
My roommate, Matt, left for vacation a few weeks ago. That left me home alone with little to do... so I signed up for a free trial from Zip.ca! Zip.ca is an online movie rental distributor. You choose a bunch of movies you want to see, and they mail them out to you. Simple as that! There are a number of different plans available to suit your movie watching needs. For instance, I get three movies out at a time, with unlimited monthly DVD rentals. So, if I watch movies fast enough, I can watch about 20 movies a month, all for one monthly fee of $24.99 or something like that.
Anyways, I thought I'd fill you in on the movies I've watched so far:
The first movie I received was 'Festival Express', which is a documentary about a rock festival that travelled across Canada in the 1970's. The film included performances from bands such as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band, Buddy Guy, the Flying Burrito Brothers, etc. The movie was enjoyable to watch, with entertaining performances, but it fell short of content. Showing a few performances took up a good portion of the 90 minute running time and left you feeling like you didn't get much out of the experience. At the same time, however, there are many extras on the DVD that include additional performances not shown in the film. Perhaps those would make up for the seeming lack of content.
The next movie to show up was 'Syriana', starring George Clooney. I had heard good things about this movie, so was expecting a good performance. For the most part, it was an entertaining movie. It took place in the Middle East, so naturally I liked it because it took me back to a familiar place. Clooney's Arabic wasn't entirely convincing, but I'm sure mine isn't either. I already forget the premise of this movie (which happens quite often with movies that don't really strike me), but I remember being disappointed with the end result of the movie. Don't even remember why, though.
Next up was 'Maria Full of Grace'. I thought this film was great. It's about a young Colombian girl who becomes a drug mule to America in order to make a lot of money. It's a disturbing movie of desperation, but has a tinge of hope, which I always require movies to have if I am to enjoy them. The story draws you into it which helps you relate to the emotions being portrayed on screen. I gave this film 5 stars out of 5.
'Control Room' was the fourth movie sent to me. It is a documentary about the Al Jazeera news network. The Al Jazeera network is the most prominent news network in the Middle East. It has many journalists working for them who were formerly associated with the BBC and other acclaimed news networks. The documentary takes place during the 2003 war with Iraq where Saddam's regime fell. It was a very interesting movie that showed how different networks spin stories different ways depending on the audience they are catering to. It sort of revealed that there is no objectivity in journalism. Still, Al Jazeera tries to claim as much objectivity as possible in their journalistic endeavours. This movie is certainly worth checking out.
'United 93' is the next film that arrived. I didn't really want to see this movie, but felt that I should check it out anyways. I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, I thought it was a terrible movie. Most of the acting was just horrible. I guess that's what happens when you let actual air traffic controllers do their own acting. I might hand it to them for giving it a try, but the truth is they shouldn't have given it a try. Anyways, the movie was really boring and could have done without the first 100 minutes. It's only a 111 minute film, by the way. I wonder what Americans think of this movie. One out of five stars from me.
The most recent film I watched was Ingmar Bergman's 'Winter Light'. This is a movie about a pastor of a small church who becomes uncertain about his faith in God. It's a short movie, yet it packs a lot of thought into it. Of all these movies, this is the one I have been thinking about the most since watching it. Defintely worth checking out if you don't rely on Hollywood gimmicks to make a movie enjoyable for you.
Anyways, I thought I'd fill you in on the movies I've watched so far:
The first movie I received was 'Festival Express', which is a documentary about a rock festival that travelled across Canada in the 1970's. The film included performances from bands such as Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, the Band, Buddy Guy, the Flying Burrito Brothers, etc. The movie was enjoyable to watch, with entertaining performances, but it fell short of content. Showing a few performances took up a good portion of the 90 minute running time and left you feeling like you didn't get much out of the experience. At the same time, however, there are many extras on the DVD that include additional performances not shown in the film. Perhaps those would make up for the seeming lack of content.
The next movie to show up was 'Syriana', starring George Clooney. I had heard good things about this movie, so was expecting a good performance. For the most part, it was an entertaining movie. It took place in the Middle East, so naturally I liked it because it took me back to a familiar place. Clooney's Arabic wasn't entirely convincing, but I'm sure mine isn't either. I already forget the premise of this movie (which happens quite often with movies that don't really strike me), but I remember being disappointed with the end result of the movie. Don't even remember why, though.
Next up was 'Maria Full of Grace'. I thought this film was great. It's about a young Colombian girl who becomes a drug mule to America in order to make a lot of money. It's a disturbing movie of desperation, but has a tinge of hope, which I always require movies to have if I am to enjoy them. The story draws you into it which helps you relate to the emotions being portrayed on screen. I gave this film 5 stars out of 5.
'Control Room' was the fourth movie sent to me. It is a documentary about the Al Jazeera news network. The Al Jazeera network is the most prominent news network in the Middle East. It has many journalists working for them who were formerly associated with the BBC and other acclaimed news networks. The documentary takes place during the 2003 war with Iraq where Saddam's regime fell. It was a very interesting movie that showed how different networks spin stories different ways depending on the audience they are catering to. It sort of revealed that there is no objectivity in journalism. Still, Al Jazeera tries to claim as much objectivity as possible in their journalistic endeavours. This movie is certainly worth checking out.
'United 93' is the next film that arrived. I didn't really want to see this movie, but felt that I should check it out anyways. I'm not gonna beat around the bush here, I thought it was a terrible movie. Most of the acting was just horrible. I guess that's what happens when you let actual air traffic controllers do their own acting. I might hand it to them for giving it a try, but the truth is they shouldn't have given it a try. Anyways, the movie was really boring and could have done without the first 100 minutes. It's only a 111 minute film, by the way. I wonder what Americans think of this movie. One out of five stars from me.
The most recent film I watched was Ingmar Bergman's 'Winter Light'. This is a movie about a pastor of a small church who becomes uncertain about his faith in God. It's a short movie, yet it packs a lot of thought into it. Of all these movies, this is the one I have been thinking about the most since watching it. Defintely worth checking out if you don't rely on Hollywood gimmicks to make a movie enjoyable for you.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Canoeing the Elk River
On Friday afternoon Aaron, his cousin Devon, and I grabbed a three-man lake 'Scanoe' and headed down to the Elk River. This was to be our test run to see if the lake canoe was river-worthy. If it passed the test, we would do a longer trip on Saturday.
We drove just upriver of Elkford to our launching point. As we turned off the road, a young teenage couple were making out where we wanted to drive through. They stopped and looked at us, not thinking to move out of the way. Devon had to open his window and say to them, "We'd like to back in here if you don't mind!" They reluctantly got up and moved out of the way.
As we backed the truck towards the river, another teenage girl in a bikini came staggering towards us. "Oooh! Are you guys from ALBERTA?" Looking inside the truck, "Whoa! Theres a GIRL in here!" This chick was clearly inebriated with 'shrooms' since one of them was holding them in their hand as we passed by. There were a couple other bikini clad girls swimming in the muddy pool of water that connected to the river.
As we lowered the canoe into the water, I reminded Aaron that I can't swim. I figured now was as good a time as any to bring that to everyone's attention. Shortly after, we pushed off from the riverbank and started rowing away from the drugged up girls. One of them shouted to out us, "You guys aren't gonna swim in the water? You guys are pussies!"
Soon we were out on the river, shooting through white-cap rapids, bouncing off massive rocks, and plummeting over waterfalls. Just kidding. The main challenge to our canoeing was dodging the many fallen trees and log jams that litter the river. At times the current from the river would pull us towards the log jams where the water rushed beneath them and threatened to pull us under as well. For the most part, however, the river was fairly navigable. For three guys who had no idea how to work together to control our canoe, we managed to reach our rendezvous point in one piece. This meant that our Saturday canoe trip was a go!
---
Saturday afternoon we found ourselves floating down the Elk river once again. Devon was in the back providing rudder action for us, Aaron was in the middle shouting out paddling directions, (mostly to himself, I think) and I sat in the front navigating. Some highlights from the trip were floating beneath a tree that had fallen across the river, shooting through the 'rapids' where the river narrowed, and just enjoying the beauty around us during the calm stretches. Not-so-highlights consisted of having to portage a couple times past log jams, somehow spinning around backwards while trying to avoid a log jam, and launching off from crap/algae infested waters. Even the not-so-highlights added to the fun of the adventure, though.
We drove just upriver of Elkford to our launching point. As we turned off the road, a young teenage couple were making out where we wanted to drive through. They stopped and looked at us, not thinking to move out of the way. Devon had to open his window and say to them, "We'd like to back in here if you don't mind!" They reluctantly got up and moved out of the way.
As we backed the truck towards the river, another teenage girl in a bikini came staggering towards us. "Oooh! Are you guys from ALBERTA?" Looking inside the truck, "Whoa! Theres a GIRL in here!" This chick was clearly inebriated with 'shrooms' since one of them was holding them in their hand as we passed by. There were a couple other bikini clad girls swimming in the muddy pool of water that connected to the river.
As we lowered the canoe into the water, I reminded Aaron that I can't swim. I figured now was as good a time as any to bring that to everyone's attention. Shortly after, we pushed off from the riverbank and started rowing away from the drugged up girls. One of them shouted to out us, "You guys aren't gonna swim in the water? You guys are pussies!"
Soon we were out on the river, shooting through white-cap rapids, bouncing off massive rocks, and plummeting over waterfalls. Just kidding. The main challenge to our canoeing was dodging the many fallen trees and log jams that litter the river. At times the current from the river would pull us towards the log jams where the water rushed beneath them and threatened to pull us under as well. For the most part, however, the river was fairly navigable. For three guys who had no idea how to work together to control our canoe, we managed to reach our rendezvous point in one piece. This meant that our Saturday canoe trip was a go!
---
Saturday afternoon we found ourselves floating down the Elk river once again. Devon was in the back providing rudder action for us, Aaron was in the middle shouting out paddling directions, (mostly to himself, I think) and I sat in the front navigating. Some highlights from the trip were floating beneath a tree that had fallen across the river, shooting through the 'rapids' where the river narrowed, and just enjoying the beauty around us during the calm stretches. Not-so-highlights consisted of having to portage a couple times past log jams, somehow spinning around backwards while trying to avoid a log jam, and launching off from crap/algae infested waters. Even the not-so-highlights added to the fun of the adventure, though.
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Bear Hunting
Earlier this week I went bear hunting with Pastor Ted and his son-in-law Craig. My weapon of choice was a Canon Digital Rebel XTi with a 75-300mm lens. We had no luck in locating a bear, though. All we saw were a few deer, a moose, and some elk far off in the distance.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
